It all began with a voice message. On 9 September 2025 Teresa’s sister sent it to Davide. On 16 October she and Vincenzo would celebrate twenty-five years of marriage, and Teresa had always wanted a painting made from their wedding photograph. It was a promise: “I promised her I would give her this gift for their 25th. I don’t know if she remembers! But she’ll have it.” The anniversary was just over five weeks away, and the first question was whether there was enough time.
The photo was in a family album. Her nieces and nephews retrieved it while the couple were out, because the gift had to stay a surprise. In the picture Teresa and Vincenzo stand in Piazza Plebiscito, in Martina Franca, at the foot of the steps of San Martino, photographed from a distance. The drawing brings the scene closer: the couple in the foreground, the square and the Clock Tower behind them.
The decisions took only a few messages. Paper rather than canvas: an oil painting, with all its stages and the month it needs to dry, would never have been ready by 16 October. Colour, not black and white. And a clean line, “because my sister is a very simple person”.
“I love the idea of giving her the memory of that photo in a different form, of capturing that moment.”
Then the work. First pencil, then colour built up in layers, with the magnifying glass over the faces, the clock face and the carvings of the doorway. The work is mixed media on paper, 24 × 32 cm. The family chose the motto, Tempus fugit, amor manet: time flies, love remains. Davide wrote it on the back, beside the title, with the date 16 October 2025.
The copies of the photo arrived on 11 September. On the 22nd came the first pencil draft, then photographs sent step by step, and on 7 October the work was finished. On 11 October it was delivered by hand, five days before the anniversary. That same evening the message arrived: “I’ve given them the gift. They loved it.”
On Instagram the story was told in six instalments, from 28 April to 12 May 2026: the message, the two parts of the creative process, the finished work, the work in its space.
“In un mondo fatto di AI, vedere un lavoro/opera fatta a mano, è ancora più entusiasmante!”
“Mi piace la freschezza del tratto e la purezza dei colori nella scelta rappresentativa dell’immagine degli sposi nella realistica emozione della loro unione.”
“La cura dei dettagli è fenomenale!”
“Love to see this come to life!”
“Non si può chiedere di meglio.”
Every commission begins like this, with a story worth keeping.
